


Phoebe at 14

by Dynapink



Category: The Monster Squad (1987)
Genre: Family, Family Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dynapink/pseuds/Dynapink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tiny look at Phoebe's life, nine years after she saved the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoebe at 14

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tptigger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/gifts).



> I started writing this as a Yuletide treat in 2012, because I had recently seen Monster Squad for the first time and because I absolutely loved this prompt when I saw it. 
> 
> The story never got finished, but I found it still sitting on my hard drive a few weeks ago, re-read it, and suddenly knew just how it should end. So, tptigger, I hope it's something you still want, and I hope you like it. :)

School let out early on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Nearly a whole week of freedom stretched in front of Phoebe as she walked home with her boyfriend Fred. 

As she walked, she was counting her blessings, in an abstract sort of way. “This time of year in particular, you should be aware of all the things you have in your life to be thankful for. Count up your blessings, big and small.” So, for lack of anything better to do, she did just that.

Well, several days away from school, that was definitely a biggie.

Her brother was coming home from college tomorrow. Sean had had a summer job that kept him away in another state throughout most of the break, so this would be the first time she’d seen him since the middle of June. And this year he wasn’t even bringing a girlfriend, so she might actually get to spend some time with him. She’d have to share him with his friends, of course, but she mostly liked his friends and they mostly liked her.

Her dad had promised to spend the whole holiday with them. That was HUGE. Huge! Seriously, this meant that her parents might not even get a divorce. They still loved each other, after all; both of them were more than willing to admit that. (And they still loved her and her brother, and none of this was their fault in any way, but Phoebe should understand that sometimes grownups just have problems they just can’t solve, and after all the problems had been there for years, and blah, blah, blah…) If the two of them could just get through Thanksgiving without wanting to kill one another, then maybe… Well, as her mom said, they’d just have to see.

She had good friends, girls and boys both, and she was really thankful for that. 

She had her “protectors”, too, in the shape of the so-called former Monster Squad: those of Sean’s friends who still happened to live in town. They’d protected her from monsters when she was five, protected her from a different sort of monster (Dracula surely hadn’t been THAT much scarier than a P.E. teacher. He’d just had dynamite.) when she was nine, and protected her now from, well, mostly from things she didn’t need protecting from. She was pretty sure Rudy in particular would go a little overboard protecting her from her own boyfriend if he knew some of the things Fred suggested once in awhile. After all, he assured her, he remembered what kind of sex maniac he’d been when he was Fred’s age, and he didn’t trust the little son of a bitch. 

Fred, completely oblivious to her thoughts, chose this exact moment to prove Rudy absolutely right. 

“I still think we should do it,” he announced, squaring his shoulders as if he’d just made some kind of earth-shattering decision instead of the same whine he made every few weeks. 

Phoebe reached up behind her head and tightened the scrunchie in her hair. “No. Shut UP,” she said.

“Phoebeeee,” he protested. “Why not? I keep asking and you never say why not.”

She stopped walking and glared at him. Fred shrank back. “Because we’re FOURTEEN, duh! And because you’re an idiot who still likes Power Rangers.” (And because, a teeny-tiny voice somewhere way back in the very back of her mind said, if something else BAD were to happen, then she wouldn’t be a virgin and she couldn’t save the world this time. But mostly because she was fourteen and Fred was an idiot.)

“What’s wrong with Power Rangers?” he squealed, clearly hurt and astonished.

“The monsters are stupid. I’ve met real monsters, and they’re nothing like that. They’re actually scary and they don’t grow to giant size just because somebody yells and waves a magic wand or something.” 

“That was last season,” Fred said through gritted teeth. 

But Phoebe was no longer listening. “Oh, my God!” she said, and broke into a run. Fred, puzzled, followed after her as she bolted down the sidewalk. She turned in at the gate of her house, ignoring the small gold pickup parked in the driveway, and cut across the grass as the quickest route to the front door. Barrelling through the front door without needing to use her key, she yelled, “Sean!”

Her brother hurried out of the kitchen to meet her. Picking her up in his arms in a big bear hug, he twirled her around a couple of times before setting her back down on her feet. “Hey, it’s Phoebe the Feeb! How you doing, kid? Oh, man, you grew again.”

Phoebe’s face went red and she glanced uncomfortably over her shoulder at Fred, who was noticeably shorter. “Not that much,” she said, embarrassed. 

Sean looked at Fred, surveying him critically. Fred gave him a lame wave hello. Leaning down to his sister’s ear, Sean said, “So this is Peckerhead, huh?” He spoke quietly, but not so quietly that Fred couldn’t hear him.

“Sean!”

Fred looked from one sibling to another and stuttered, “So, Phoebe, see you tomorrow, right? At the mall? I gotta get home now.” He edged toward the front door.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” she said, but most of her attention was again on her brother.

Sean gave a derisive sort of snort as the door shut. “Your _boyfriend_ seems nice.”

Thankfully Phoebe didn’t blush this time, didn’t even come close. “He _is_ nice,” she said. “You shouldn’t listen to what Rudy says. He’s just being an overprotective jerkwad.” _She_ might torment Fred and think of him as an idiot, but that privilege didn’t extend to her brother, and especially not to her brother’s friends.

“All right, all right,” said Sean, holding up his hands in surrender. “I give. That doesn’t mean I don’t reserve the right to tease the bejesus out of you, though.” He paused, then added, “Or be an overprotective jerkwad.”

 

Later, as they sat together at the kitchen table indulging in the nostalgic ritual of after-school snacks, Phoebe asked him, “So, how come you’re home a day early?”

Sean popped a pizza roll in his mouth and swallowed it down in one gulp. “Felt like it. I got free a little earlier than I thought, and I figured I’d come on and spend all of tomorrow with you and Mom and maybe Dad instead of fighting the holiday traffic. ’Course, I didn’t know you had plans tomorrow.”

“I don’t have to go,” she volunteered quickly.

Sean shook his head. “Nah, don’t change your plans for me, Sis. I’m going out with the guys tonight instead of hanging with you, so you might as well go to the mall with Fred Fred Peckerhead.” She scowled, and he gave her an ingratiating smile. “I’ll drive you,” he offered.

“Okay. Tell you what. While I’m gone, you can work on Mom.”

He looked at her blankly. “Work on Mom about what?”

“About Dad, duh. See if she’ll invite him to stay over after dinner tomorrow instead of him having to leave and come back Thursday. Even the guest room would be better than nothing. I think you should tell her that since you only have a few days, you don’t really have enough time to split between them and you’d really like to see the whole family on your vacation. She’ll eat that up!”

Sean looked at her for a couple of minutes, his expression serious. “Feeb,” he said finally. “You’re not really gonna try this, are you?”

“Try what?”

“Try reuniting the parents, that’s what. That’s kid stuff. It only works in movies.”

“You don’t want them to get _divorced,_ do you?”

He sighed. “No. I don’t. But that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Phoebe gave an emphatic shake of her head. “Not if we do something about it! Sean, seriously, between the two of us we could talk some sense into them.” He snorted. “No, listen. If we just get them to spend more time together while you’re home, all of us as a family, then they’ll remember what it used to be like, and remember that they still love each other.”

“For about five minutes,” he told her. “Question is, do _you_ remember what it used to be like? Sure, they loved each other. Maybe they still do, but, Phoebe, they were miserable. They make each other miserable. They’ve been making each other miserable for years and years and years. They’ve gone through marriage counselors like they go through toilet paper, and everybody comes out smelling like shit.”

Phoebe winced. “Gross.”

“Whatever. Point is, even if you get your way, and Dad spends the whole holiday with us and they both start getting all nostalgic for the good old days and he moves back in, what do you think’s gonna happen?” She opened her mouth to venture an opinion, but he cut her off. “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. The whole damn thing’s gonna start all over again, that’s what’ll happen. Before long they’ll be miserable and they’ll be spending all their time yelling their heads off at each other, and you’ll be right here caught in the middle of the whole thing.”

“At least there’d be a middle to be caught in,” she protested. “That’s better than—”

“It’s _not_ better. Not for you, not for them, not for any of us.”

She looked at him, eyes blazing with anger. “So you’re really not going to do anything at all, Sean?”

He shook his head. “’Fraid not. Phoebe, just—”

“Fuck you.” She pushed her chair back from the table with a loud scrape, and got up to go to her room. Or the living room, or the mall, or the back yard, or anyplace her treacherous brother didn’t happen to be.

Sean caught at her hand, stopping her progress. “Phoebe…” he coaxed.

The tears that had been threatening to overwhelm her ever since her brother had started his little speech started to well up in her eyes. Her voice cracked when she spoke, making her sound, to her immense disgust and embarrassment, like a whiny four-year-old. “We saved the whole world, Sean. Why can’t we save our own stupid family?”

He pulled her against his shoulder. “Saving the world was the easy part, kid. Those guys were just monsters. People, though,” he said, with all the vast, world-weary experience of his almost twenty-one years, “people can suck a whole lot harder than vampires.” He grinned up at her in appreciation of his own wit.

Phoebe pulled out of his embrace. “Idiot,” she said fondly, and sat back down to apply her attention to the last pizza roll on her plate.

The end.


End file.
